Special Features
We have also many surnames due to physical resemblances not extending beyond one feature. Birdseye may be sometimes of local origin, from ey, island (Chapter XII), but as a genuine nickname it is as natural as the sobriquet of Hawkeye which Natty Bumppo received from the Hurons. German has the much less pleasing Gansauge, goose-eye; and Alan Oil de larrun, thief’s eye, was fined for very reprehensible conduct in 1183. To explain Crowfoot as an imitative variant of Crawford is absurd when we find a dozen German surnames of the same class and formation and as many in Old or Modern French beginning with pied de. Cf. Pettigrew (Chapter XXI) and Sheepshanks. We find in the Paris Directory not only Piedeleu (Old Fr. leu, wolf) and Piedoie (oie, goose), but even the full Pied-de-Lièvre, Professeur à la Faculté de droit. The name Bulleid was spelt in the sixteenth century bul-hed, i.e. bull-head, a literal rendering of Front de Boeuf. Weatherhead (Chapter XIX) is perhaps usually a nickname
“For that old weather-headed fool, I know how to laugh at him.”
(Congreve, Love for Love, ii. 7.)
Coxhead is another obvious nickname. A careful analysis of some of the most important medieval name-lists would furnish hundreds of further examples, some too outspoken to have survived into our degenerate age, and others which are now so corrupted that their original vigour is quite lost.
Puns and jokes upon proper names are, pace Gregory the Great and Shakespeare, usually very inept and stupid; but the following lines by James Smith, which may be new to some of my readers, are really clever—
Men once were surnamed from their shape or estate
(You all may from History worm it);
There was Lewis the Bulky, and Henry the Great,
John Lackland, and Peter the Hermit.
But now, when the door-plates of Misters and Dames
Are read, each so constantly varies
From the owner’s trade, figure, and calling, Surnames
Seem given by the rule of contraries.
Mr. Box, though provoked, never doubles his fist,
Mr. Burns, in his grate, has no fuel;
Mr. Playfair won’t catch me at hazard or whist,
Mr. Coward was wing’d in a duel.
Mr. Wise is a dunce, Mr. King is a whig,
Mr. Coffin’s uncommonly sprightly,
And huge Mr. Little broke down in a gig,
While driving fat Mrs. Golightly.
Mrs. Drinkwater’s apt to indulge in a dram,
Mrs. Angel’s an absolute fury,
And meek Mr. Lyon let fierce Mr. Lamb
Tweak his nose in the lobby of Drury.
At Bath, where the feeble go more than the stout,
(A conduct well worthy of Nero),
Over poor Mr. Lightfoot, confined with the gout,
Mr. Heaviside danced a Bolero.
Miss Joy, wretched maid, when she chose Mr. Love,
Found nothing but sorrow await her;
She now holds in wedlock, as true as a dove,
That fondest of mates, Mr. Hayter.
Mr. Oldcastle dwells in a modern-built hut,
Miss Sage is of madcaps the archest;
Of all the queer bachelors Cupid e’er cut,
Old Mr. Younghusband’s the starchest.
Mr. Child, in a passion, knock’d down Mr. Rock,
Mr. Stone like an aspen-leaf shivers;
Miss Poole used to dance, but she stands like a stock
Ever since she became Mrs. Rivers;
Mr. Swift hobbles onward, no mortal knows how,
He moves as though cords had entwin’d him;
Mr. Metcalfe ran off, upon meeting a cow,
With pale Mr. Turnbull behind him.
Mr. Barker’s as mute as a fish in the sea,
Mr. Miles never moves on a journey;
Mr. Gotobed sits up till half-after three,
Mr. Makepeace was bred an attorney.
Mr. Gardiner can’t tell a flower from a root,
Mr. Wilde with timidity draws back,
Mr. Ryder performs all his journeys on foot,
Mr. Foote all his journeys on horseback.
Mr. Penny, whose father was rolling in wealth,
Kick’d down all his fortune his dad won;
Large Mr. Le Fever’s the picture of health,
Mr. Goodenough is but a bad one.
Mr. Cruickshank stept into three thousand a year,
By showing his leg to an heiress: —
Now I hope you’ll acknowledge I’ve made it quite clear
That surnames ever go by contraries.
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